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Nate waves a hand in front of his face.
Yeah. She drank so much the booze is literally oozing from her pores, so the whole apartment stinks of it.
“It’s a miracle she made it home,” he says.
“She wasn’t out,” I mutter. “She was right here.”
“Wait, are you saying… what are you saying?”
“Not saying anything, man.”
He glances at her door, rubs his left temple as if he’s in pain. The silence stretches until he breaks it again. “Why did she do it?”
Because she hates me. Because she hates her life.
But I just shrug.
At least this time it wasn’t so bad, I want to tell him.
At least this time she didn’t try to kill herself.
“I remember the last time it happened,” he says. “Was it four, five months ago? You found her in the backyard, and we had to drag her inside and upstairs.”
It happens all the fucking time, but Nate has seen it only once because he happened to be around.
I don’t say this, either. I say nothing.
“What now?” he finally asks.
“She threw most of it up, I got some water in her. She will sleep it off and wake up with a killer headache.”
“Heh. I bet.” He grins at me, flashing his dimple, and I’m so fucking grateful he’s here, but I can’t find it in me to pretend and smile back.
When his hand lands on my shoulder, I almost jump out of my skin. “Come on, bud. Let’s get out of here. I think you need some fresh air.”
Do I?
Thing is, I don’t know what the hell I need, what could fill the hole in my chest, or fix this fucking mess that is my life.
“Here, dickass,” Nate says, lighting up a cigarette and passing it to me, propping his foot on the outside wall of our building. “Doctor’s orders.”
“What for?” I take it automatically and take a drag, disappointed that it turns out to be just tobacco.
Nate is a bad influence.
“For the shock.” He says it so easily, like it’s normal, like he knows what Grandpa said, what finding my sister like this did to me. Like I’m not weak and useless.
I cough as I give it back to him, and he grins.
“Better?”
Is he for real? How can choking on bitter smoke make any of it better?
And yet it does. I laugh through the hacking, and lean back against the graffiti on the wall, closing my eyes and letting the evening breeze caress my face.
“Better,” I whisper.
“Syd came by.” Nate smokes like he’s done it all his life, drawing in smoke, letting it out in shuddering clouds. I remember him smoking ever since he moved here with his parents a couple of years ago.
